Substitution
by fascimility
Summary: Tenpou angsts. Goujin is around.


_**Substitution**_

In the darkness, Goujun felt the tip of the gun dig into his back through the fabric of his shirt. Damnit, he thought. I should have known better than to come without some form of protection.

Goujun's arm was forced higher up his back and he was in what he though would have been a good imitation of someone attempting to scratch his nose by reaching up from the back. A warm breath hissed past his ear. "If you want a blowjob, there's always Konzen next door."

"Fuck you, Marshal," Goujun growled.

"Although seeing that it is nearly two in the morning there may be some other doors that even you can't enter." Tenpou cocked the gun and drove it hard into the other man's side. "Can dragons die?" he asked, using his weight to pin Goujun against the case of books in his study.

Goujun swung round, temporarily ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder as he jerked his knee into Tenpou's unguarded stomach. He knocked the gun out of the other's hands and punched him squarely on the jaw. His knuckles stung like hell, but the bruise on Tenpou's smirking face would last for days.

"We are all immortal, Marshal," came the sharp reply. Goujun paused, and when he spoke again there was softness in his voice. "And perhaps immortality is the punishment for us."

Tenpou stepped forward and pushed Goujun roughly against his desk. Goujun did not protest. He let his body fall like a dead weight onto polished mahogany, scattering papers and assorted stationery. Tenpou winced as the ashtray toppled clumsily to the ground. "Goku made that…" he said to no one in particular as he half sat, half straddled the desk.

Goujun's eyes stared up at him, blood red and still as the shadows that held the fragments of his memories together. I dare you to, Marshal, they seemed to say. "You of all people should know that I never back down from challenges," Tenpou murmured gently. He leant down and let his teeth graze Goujun's earlobe.

Goujun instinctively reached out to slide the other man's spectacles off. He shifted to make room for Tenpou, not caring as he sent dense stacks of memos and a box of seals tumbling to the ground in disarray. "You really shouldn't wear these," he said, smirking dangerously and flinging the metal frames across the room in one swift motion.

Nimble fingers, warm, calloused and stained with nicotine skimmed across his torso and dipped beneath his shirt to find their way onto his skin. The lingering scent of musky smoke and heated sweat.

Goujun reached for Tenpou's vest and began working on the buttons, cursing mildly at the difficulty of undoing them in the semi-darkness. Tenpou shrugged off his shirt impatiently and ground himself hard against Goujun. Hands, he thought, warm hands and sinewy limbs and heat and raw emptiness. Lips, and redness and eyes that seemed to cry blood.

In the twilight drenched corridors of his mind there were convoluted lines and criss-crossing pathways that met, and met again. Once there traces of his footsteps but bitterness and fury have washed them away with the sands of time.

—hands lingered dangerously at his waist. Threatening to drift lower. A belt pressed urgently against his stomach, cutting into the flesh—

In his world there were no more strangers (no one, save for himself—the only other person who had ever shared it was long gone. Blond hair and purple eyes never did quite go together). He still smiled, and when he did it was a half-smirk of brash nonchalance and calculated disrespect. (Konzen muttering, "act like that and you'll piss everyone off.")

—his pants were around his ankles and he struggled to lift them—

His heart expanded like the beginning of the universe and all matter that beat with the same pulsating rhythm was forced further and further apart as the whole entity form exploded in a burst of dying light. (The foreign taste of sake and cigarettes on Konzen's lips. "You're leaving? Tenpou asks. ) Loneliness wasn't the emptiness that indicated the absence of one portion of his soul, but the antimatter that was the form of his existence. ("…idiot," came the gruff reply.)

—Goujun muzzled him almost tenderly (or so he liked to imagine. Almost, almost similar to Konzen) and Tenpou unconsciously leaned closer—

Warning bells went off in his head. Abruptly, he shoved Goujun violently away. He gathered his pants (which were pooled at his ankles. Konzen never wore pants. Always the skirt.)

A pause, before Goujun chuckled wryly. "So fucking's okay—"

"—but not kissing." Tenpou finished the sentence without looking up.

Goujun watched as Tenpou lit a cigarette. A flare of the match, and then thin tendrils of smoke. "If you ever need me, Marshal," he said, turning to walk out, "I'll always he here."

"And I like you too," Tenpou said lightly. Goujun didn't turn back.

In his world he saw sky stretch above him boundless as the sea and infinitely clear. ("We'll come back together some day," he said. "Maybe," was Konzen's non-committal reply.)

The door clicked softly shut.

The End


End file.
